Verheugen: Better regulation a contribution to subsidiarity

The Vice-President of the European Commission, Günter Verheugen, sought in his presentation to portray the complex topics of subsidiarity and better law-making as important topics for the future of Europe. “They are fundamental, political questions about the tensions existing between freedom and responsibility, between obligations and rights, between transparency and bureaucracy which reach down to the very roots of a democratic society”.  

Since Maastricht subsidiarity has been the guiding legal maxim of the EU, which should only regulate things national states are not able to regulate themselves. This is a principle to which he himself subscribes within his field of responsibility, reported Verheugen, in that he had drastically reduced the number of proposals in the field of the internal market. However, he rejected the image of the EU as a cold, technocratic and bureaucratic juggernaut and pointed out that the Commission had fewer civil servants than the Federal State of Lower Austria.

Verheugen attached central significance to the principle of transparency. He could see no reason why parts of EU law-making were negotiated behind closed doors. The right of the citizen to know how and why decisions were being made had to be respected.  

Verheugen also underlined the political and economic targets pursued with the “better regulation” project and expressed his support for the Constitutional Treaty. The courts should be able to verify whether all of the procedural steps required by the subsidiarity principle had been followed, whereby it should be taken into account that the subsidiarity principle means something different to countries like Germany and Austria than to France or Spain. It was however clear that an EU project had to contribute added value and must not be allowed simply to serve local and regional interests. 

With regard to the criticism of the excessive number of laws and regulations, Verheugen's announcement that the Commission intended not only to measure the costs of bureaucracy but to set quantifiable targets for their reduction aroused interest. He regarded a 25% reduction in bureaucratic costs for enterprises and – in a second phase – also in administration as ambitious, but attainable. 

Finally, Verheugen remarked that the Commission had withdrawn one third of its legislative proposals pending in the European Parliament. He stressed in this connection that the purpose of this simplification and modification of EU laws was not deregulation. The Commission was not pursuing a radical market agenda. The level attained by the EU, its firm and stable regulatory framework had to be retained.